to be seized, at pleasure, by the magistrate; but what
definition is given of a seafaring man? Or by what characteristick is
the magistrate to distinguish him? I have never been able to discover
any peculiarities in the form of a seaman that mark him out from the
rest of the species. There is, indeed, less servility in his air, and
less effeminacy in his face, than in those that are commonly to be seen
in drawing-rooms, in brothels, and at reviews; but I know not that a
seaman can be distinguished from any other man of equal industry or use,
who has never enervated himself by vice, nor polished himself into
corruption. So that this bill, sir, if it shall pass into a law, will
put it at once in the power of the magistrate to dispose of seamen at
his pleasure, and to term whom he pleases a seaman.

Another expedient, sir, has been offered on this occasion, not equally
tyrannical, but equally inadequate to the end in view. It is proposed to
restrain the merchants from giving wages beyond a certain rate, on the
supposition that the sailors have no motive but that of larger wages, to
prefer the service of the merchants to that of the crown.

This, sir, is a mistake which might easily arise from a partial and
imperfect knowledge of the affair, with which very few gentlemen have
opportunities of being well acquainted. The wages, sir, are the smallest
inducements which fix the seamen in their choice. The prospect of kinder
treatment, the certainty of returning home in a fixed time, and the
power of choosing what voyages they will undertake, cannot but be
acknowledged very reasonable motives of preference.

On the contrary, sir, when they are once engaged in a ship of war, they
know neither whither they are going, what dangers they shall encounter,
what hardships they shall suffer, nor when they shall be dismissed.

Besides, sir, I do not think it possible by any law to limit the wages
to be paid by merchants, since they will change the term of wages into
that of a present, or admit the sailors to a small share in the freight,
and so all the precaution we can take will become ineffectual.

In the mean time, sir, how much shall we embarrass our own commerce, and
impair our natural strength--the power of our fleets? We shall terrify
our sailors on the one hand, and endeavour to starve them on the other;
we shall not only drive them from us by unheard-of severities, but take
away every motive that can induce them to expose thems